Celebrating My Heart in December

I’ve been reading this book ‘Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life with the Heart of a Buddha’ by Tara Brach. She is a clinical psychologist and a western teacher of Buddhist meditation, emotional healing, and spiritual awakening. She shares simple meditations throughout the book that can be done in a few minutes. Last month I started doing one of them. In short, you sit in stillness and ask yourself ‘What does my heart truly long for?’. At first, you might come up with answers like ‘money’, ‘a partner’, ‘a house’. You keep at it though, asking yourself what does my heart truly long for? Eventually you hit on something, the true something of what you long for – hint: it isn’t usually material.

I realized what my heart truly longed for at that time was to open up to love, and feel love and connection with other people. Knowing that was powerful because it helped me understand my self more. I began to look at my day through the lens of wanting love and connection and figuring out how I could give it. Cause what I want more than anything is to open up to love and that means giving, giving, giving. Not just to others but to myself too. How can I give myself love?

That led to me creating a challenge for myself (of course) to celebrate the holidays in some way each day in December. What better time to connect with others than the holidays?! Originally it was to go to a holiday-themed event, get-together, or party each day, but in the vein of loving myself and enjoying myself, I realized that wasn’t exactly going to be practical. It’s day 21, the winter solstice, and so far I have indeed celebrated the holidays each day. A list of how I’m doing that below.

I didn’t know what to expect, but I have already seen some changes. I’m about to share just how weird I can be so if you’re still reading this, get ready. In the past, I’ve not wanted to hang out with my sister when she’s with her boyfriend or friends. I get too self-conscious and feeling like I need to take care of and balance everyone else’s emotional energies. It’s actually a little hard to explain and it’s definitely not rational, but my sister is super understanding about it. It’s also not exclusive to being with her. I generally find group dynamics a little stressful.

Then on December 7th, I went with my sister to the Frick museum. As I was getting ready to go I thought to myself, I wonder if her boyfriend will come that would be cool all three of us checking out the museum together. Then I had a holy shit moment. I had literally never EVER had that thought before. I believe that I was able to feel that way because in the six days prior to that I’d been going out and celebrating the holidays each day and opening the space around my heart more and more. He didn’t wind up joining us, but I was open to it.

Photo credit: Dan Corbett

As I open up more to love and loving myself, it’s a little painful to recognize how I haven’t done that in the past. To see how I rejected my own heart, and myself. It’s also extremely exciting and enlivening to see how powerful my love can be, now that I’ve decided to practice opening up to it.

DAY 2: Gathered with hundreds at the Annual Park Avenue Tree Lighting Ceremony. They light trees all along Park Ave between 54th and 97th street as a symbol of peace and the people who fought and died in WWII to attain it. It was a night filled with caroling and families celebrating + praying.

DAY 3: Visited the Union Square holiday market, and worked a holiday party.

DAY 4: Went to the SAG-AFTRA holiday party and saw a bunch of friends there.

DAY 5: Visited my friend and a renowned figurative painter who has painted a couple of portraits of me. Drank wine and sat around her fireplace talking about the holidays.

DAY 6: Worked another holiday party, and sniffed some evergreen Christmas trees.

DAY 7: Went to First Friday at the Frick with my sister, we drew together and listened to a performance of live Christmas music.

DAY 8: Worked another holiday party.

DAY 9: Lunch with mom + she got me a Christmas wreath. Spent the evening with my friend Mara, we walked around lit trees in Thompkins square park, drank tea, and talked about the holidays (and other stuff ;-).

DAY 10: Bought a Christmas present for a family member.

DAY 11: My friend Benny invited me to his work Christmas party, he won a prize and we posed for photos with a polar bear.

DAY 12: Helped decorate a Christmas tree at a church with the Actors Episcopal Guild.

DAY 13: Worked my last holiday party.

DAY 14: Went to a holiday poetry reading at the Cornelia Street Cafe.

DAY 15: Checked out the gingerbread house at Madison Square Park.

DAY 16: Deep cleaned my apartment while listening to Christmas music on blast.

DAY 17: Went to a local cafe and drank hot apple cider, sitting by a decorated Christmas tree, reading a book about love.

DAY 18: Went to hear the New York City Opera perform live Christmas carols, and classical music at Bryant Park.

DAY 19: Watched a movie about Charles Dickens called ‘The Man Who Invented Christmas’. At the end of the film they share that Dickens published ‘A Christmas Carol’ on Dec 19th many years ago. I didn’t realize that ahead of time, but I love synchronicity. I also had a session with a social media client in her apartment and got to see her beautiful Christmas tree.

DAY 20: Went to a cast + crew screening of EVENING NEWS, a film I acted in earlier this year. It was so beautiful to be among the people who helped make that film happen and listen to their reactions as they watched the film. 💛 It’s my holiday event for the day because it’s in the spirit of love, celebration, and creation.

Photo credit: Camile Grace

I’m looking forward to continuing my December journey, and curious to see where opening my heart will lead me to next.